Welfare Biology and AI: The Psychopath, the Nematode, and the Arahant
Dawn Drescher
Published on May 4, 2026 5:29 PM GMT Pain without a sufferer: a speculative model of invertebrate experience, drawn from no-self psychopathy and Buddhist phenomenology, and what it predicts about welfare ranges. This is Part 4 of a five-part sequence on welfare ecology. Part 1 introduces the ethical premises. Part 2 covers the empirical landscape. Part 3 covers interventions. Part 5 covers AI. A key uncertainty so far has been that of the welfare range of nematodes. More is known about the welfa